There has been an upswing in the use of corporate funds to preserve and rehabilitate some of the World’s great cultural heritage sites in Italy. Gaia Piangiani and Jim Yardley report for the New York Times:
While private-public partnerships are common in the United States and many other countries, the government has traditionally been responsible for maintaining historical sites in Italy, and even today some historians and preservationists worry that the shift could lead to crass commercialization. Critics complain that companies have exploited cultural sites by commandeering them for elaborate dinners or the display of luxury advertisements.
Indignation ran high in Florence after it was discovered that city officials had allowed Morgan Stanley to hold a dinner inside a 14th-century chapel for a rental price of $27,000. Florence’s mayor doubled the rent to $54,000 after the outcry, but some argued that price was not the core issue.
“There are sacred places where one can simply not hold a dinner,” said Salvatore Settis, an expert in cultural heritage law and a former director of the J. Paul Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. “Not even for four million euros” ($5.4 million).
Many preservationists were also outraged that Rome’s mayor allowed the Rolling Stones to rent Circus Maximus for an outdoor concert last month.
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has often spoken about the need to enlist private companies to underwrite work at sites like Pompeii, where more than $137 million in European Union funds has already been spent. In May Mr. Franceschini, the culture minister, announced a new tax deduction intended to encourage private-sector donations for the restoration and preservation of museums, archives, libraries and theaters.
To many other nations this kind of corporate assistance seems relatively benign. So long as the sites receive much-needed care, there seems to be little potential harm. The Mausoleum of Augustus, right around the corner from the Ara Pacis in Rome, is badly in need of some attention, and may it with a donation from a Saudi Prince.
